He said he wanted to introduce me even today, but is it okay to barge in like this? Will Kang Ikwon really be surprised and happy as I imagine? I was more concerned about Kang Ikwon’s reaction than the friends who would be hit with the bomb called me out of nowhere. I must have hesitated long enough for the leather wallet I was touching like a charm in my pocket to become warm with my body heat. The valet parking attendant came outside and blatantly looked at me like I was a suspicious person. I stubbed out my cigarette, shoved the wallet into my pocket, and boldly moved forward.
“Welcome.”
“Hello.”
I tensed up as I approached the reception desk, which was as antique as a hotel counter. I heard that membership bars like this usually don’t accept outside guests at all—is that really true? They probably won’t let me in just with Kang Ikwon’s name.
“Um, I’ve been here with a guest before… just last week.”
“Yes. You’re Cha Gyujin, who accompanied Kang Ikwon, right?”
A frustratingly refreshing answer came back without needing any lengthy explanation. The staff member smiled kindly.
“Do you have an appointment with Kang Ikwon?”
“Yes. But he… that person is a member and I’m not.”
“That’s fine. At our main location, we provide services to non-members as well, limited to those vouched for by members.”
“Vouched for? Does that cost money by any chance?”
I asked suspiciously. As a modern person, the word “vouch” is something you should never pass by indifferently.
“No, sir.”
The staff member explained kindly without even a flicker in their elegant smile.
“Separate from member referrals, when an existing VIP member designates someone, one person per membership can be registered as a temporary member with limited service access.”
“Ah. So a member can slot in one friend, is that it?”
“Haha, yes. That’s correct, sir.”
So it’s similar to a hotel fitness center concept. While I looked around more comfortably and at ease, the staff quickly looked something up and confirmed for me.
“Kang Ikwon registered you, Cha Gyujin, as a vouched member during his previous visit.”
“Huh.”
I only followed him once and he registered me right away that day, and there’s only one slot per member? What would I even do coming to a place like this, and he wasted it on me.
“Shall I guide you to the room he’s in now?”
“Please.”
Though I grumbled internally, Kang Ikwon’s voucher became the courage that pushed my back. The timid heart that had been hesitating until the very end naturally disappeared. I received a parking ticket they gave me without asking and followed the lobby staff who had been waiting, getting on the elevator. I thought they’d just tell me the room number, but they personally guided me to the door and even knocked for me. Before the staff could even open their mouth, the door burst open as if someone had been waiting.
“You’re already he—”
“You’re completely deceiving him right now!”
One person and one voice burst out simultaneously. As for me, I was more concerned about the sharp remark that just passed than the man staring at me without blinking. Because I had an intuition that the target of those words was Kang Ikwon. I held my breath and focused all my attention inside, when the man who opened the door stared intently at me and asked the staff.
“Why is this person here?”
The staff turned to me with a surprised face, but I was just as flustered by the strange nuance. A tone like he knows me. A man with long eyes and a slender build, smiling but somehow grating on my nerves—definitely unfamiliar with no place in my memory. Yet he was acting as if an unexpected intruder had arrived.
“Isn’t he with your party?”
The staff asked suspiciously. I’m not that suspicious person. I hurriedly waved my hands in denial, but then made eye contact with Kang Ikwon over the man’s shoulder and awkwardly changed it to a wave. Kang Ikwon stood up abruptly.
“How did you—”
With his gaze fixed on me, Kang Ikwon approached in one stride and gently pushed the shoulder of the man blocking the door.
“Ugh!”
But the man staggered as if he’d been hit by a car and was shoved into a corner. Wow. Anyone watching would think Kang Ikwon pushed him really hard. Kang Ikwon didn’t care and looked into my eyes, asking worriedly. He was clearly flustered by the unexpected situation.
“How did you get all the way here?”
“…Because you left this behind.”
I took out the card wallet and held it out, my face flushing. Actually, in this era when you can even pay with your phone, this isn’t important enough to personally bring it. If it were really necessary, he would have called. At the embarrassment that was more blatant than I’d imagined, I added somewhat curtly.
“You said to come anytime I felt like it.”
From inside came the sound of someone gasping. I wonder if they’re surprised that Kang Ikwon called me here, or surprised at my shamelessness for actually coming.
“Anyway, he is with the party…”
See? I pointed at Kang Ikwon as if making excuses to the suspicious staff and the surprised faces in the room. Surprise. No one smiled at my small addition.
I looked at the ceiling. And then back at the table.
Four glasses on the table. Four car keys next to the glasses. And three pairs of eyes firmly fixed on me, who had become one axis of the party that had increased from four to five.
“Ohh…”
No matter how persistently I ignored them, the gazes followed persistently. Especially Kang Ikwon’s friend who had unintentionally greeted me at the door was blatantly observing me. Watching Kang Ikwon hold my hands like treating a small child and meticulously wipe them with a wet towel, his smile deepened even more.
“This is totally like a princess making an entrance.”
“Not princess, Cha Gyujin.”
Thanks to that, my tone from the first meeting came out listlessly confrontational.
“You should call people by their proper names.”
“Ah—sorry about that, I haven’t gotten the intro yet.”
“Then don’t call me anything…”
I muttered quietly, but he heard it like a ghost and giggled.
“You’re way more standoffish than what I heard.”
What did you hear?
That unpleasant man stared intently at me for a while, then suddenly offered a friendly introduction.
“I’m Moon Jaeyoung. Daniel Moon. If you want to call me more affectionately, Dae—”
“Yes, Mr. Moon Jaeyoung.”
“Pfft. Hey, do you really not remember me?”
“Remember what… this is the first time I’m seeing you.”
“I was at the PP renewal and also went to O’Bar’s New Year party last year.”
PP is a boutique hotel whose real French name no one remembers, and O’Bar is what it was called before the J fell off the sign. I want to pretend I don’t know, but they were all events I remember attending. I slowly looked over the snake eyes who introduced himself as Moon Jaeyoung again, but he was still vaguely unfamiliar. Moon Jaeyoung grimaced.
“How can you not know me? I’m intense enough that you can’t forget me even if we just brush past each other?”
“Even sitting across from you, not really?”
Moon Jaeyoung glanced sideways at Kang Ikwon.
“Do you often hear that you’re dull or have a bad memory?”
“I just don’t bother remembering people I’m not interested in.”
For a moment, Pujo hyung’s scolding about writing in a diary if I get confused about who I slept with flashed by. But I can say for certain—I didn’t sleep with him.
“Ah… really? People you’re not interested in…”
Moon Jaeyoung looked at Kang Ikwon and giggled annoyingly for a long time. Then he leaned toward me and said in a subtle voice.
“At that O’Bar party, together—”
“I said I don’t remember.”
Kang Ikwon interrupted in a low voice. It sounded casual at first, but the tone was infinitely sunken. After persistently wiping even between my fingers, Kang Ikwon threw the wet towel into the trash.
“Whoa… don’t be mad. Today I was just going to say hello.”
Kang Ikwon’s defense, which sounded frustratingly gentle to my ears, predictably didn’t work at all. The way he raised both hands in surrender and made a straight face while anyone could see he was teasing. Moon Jaeyoung mumbled in a much more subdued tone than before.
“Well, it’s nothing else, it’s just surprising that we’ve crossed paths several times when I don’t come to Korea often.”
Moon Jaeyoung grinned and winked at me slyly.
“Isn’t this usually called fate or destiny?”
Are you hitting on me right in front of Kang Ikwon? Seriously. I was so dumbfounded I blew away Moon Jaeyoung’s wink with a hearty sneer. In this not-so-wide scene, there are plenty of people like that—who am I anyway?
More than anything, there couldn’t be much of a connection between Kang Ikwon’s friend who frequents this members-only room and me, a regular at a Jangchung-dong gay bar with a broken sign. At best, we occasionally brush past each other at big events where all sorts of people gather. I suddenly realized how rare and fortunate the probability of meeting Kang Ikwon was. Probably originally we would have been like Moon Jaeyoung and me—passing at a distance and never even knowing that fact for our whole lives… Come to think of it, why did Kang Ikwon come all the way to O’Bar that day?
“We meet again.”
I was immersed in the melancholic sentiment stirred up by Moon Jaeyoung at our first meeting when my eyes met Park Seoyun’s. The familiar face greeting me as if he’d been waiting wasn’t entirely welcome, so I hesitated, then lightly nodded my head too.
“Sorry for barging in suddenly.”
After saying it, I thought the nuance was strange. Isn’t this somehow a meaningful greeting for my current position—that is, for the last side of a love triangle to say when smashing the vertex? But they didn’t seem to care what I babbled on about, let alone ponder the meaning. The man in the Givenchy sweatshirt who had been quietly watching me from next to Park Seoyun muttered.
“What a shame…”
When our eyes met, he avoided my gaze with an embarrassed face.
Before I could properly reconsider the strange atmosphere that seemed too peculiar to be simply stiff from my intrusion, Kang Ikwon looked at my face and asked.
“Aren’t you thirsty?”
As soon as Kang Ikwon reached for the liquor bottle, thwack—Park Seoyun ruthlessly blocked it. The air turned cold at the blatantly dismissive gesture anyone could see. But unlike me, who had stiffened, Kang Ikwon alternately looked at his empty hand hanging in the air and Park Seoyun, then detoured to the water bottle without a single protest. He only briefly showed an expression of regret. As if this kind of cold treatment was familiar to him.
